


The King's Exhortation

by cruisedirector



Category: King's Speech (2010)
Genre: Alternate History, Awkward Conversations, Community: kings_speeches, Kissing, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, POV First Person, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Royalty, Speech Disorders, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-06
Updated: 2011-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England needs Bertie far too much for Lionel to be selfish, even if he were so inclined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The King's Exhortation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dementordelta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dementordelta/gifts).



> This was the first story I ever wrote in this fandom and was supposed to be the only one; everything I tried to do in here, I did better in "The Beauty of Their Dreams" and "The Kissing Lesson." I posted it unbetaed, with apologies for the RPFiness, because Dementordelta told me to. I am neither British nor Australian -- and certainly not royal -- so the idioms for all of the above are probably all wrong. Contains spoilers for the film and for the life of King George VI.

It begins with a hug, though I won’t understand at the time. Of course I’ve been aware that Bertie touches people far less often than the typical man in the street, but I have seen him embrace his wife and daughters, so he has never seemed starved for physical contact. Nor have I been particularly careful not to touch him during our sessions, although I’m more courteous than I would be with most men, asking permission when with another I would simply reach to straighten the back or pull down the jaw. Shellshocked soldiers often react badly to being touched, so I’ve had to develop an instinct for which men I might approach without warning. I hadn’t asked myself recently whether I treated Bertie as I did because of his natural reticence or because he was the King of England.

Bertie will occasionally clasp my shoulder in greeting or in appreciation, so when he unexpectedly wraps his arms around me and squeezes, I think little of it until I realize that he is in no hurry to let go. Eventually his grip loosens and I step back, only then realizing that my hands are holding the fine material of his coat tightly in my fingers. He does not meet my eyes, and I feel momentary unease -- I would never wish to repeat the awkwardness of that period when he would not speak to me, when minor palace officials turned me away with dismissive gestures. But as he turns to leave, he says, “Until Thursday,” and I remember that I have promised to return to rehearse a speech.

Though he greets me as always, on Thursday it is apparent that he is having a bad day. After an uneven read-through, we practice exercises to help him prepare for the speech -- first vowel sounds, then musical notes, now simply stretches of the lips and jaw and tongue. “Bastard,” he mutters.

“That’s right, Bertie.”

“Arse-licker.” That’s a new one. The King of England glares at me as if I’ve done something vile. He hates it when he has a lapse, even such a minor one as he experienced earlier while rehearsing this hastily written speech, no radio address but rather a short presentation to several dozen military men.

“Yes. Good.”

“F-fuck, fuck, fuck you!” That tiny stammer makes him furious, I can see it in his mottled face. “Listen to me, I’m regressing!”

“You are not regressing.” Between the stress of the war and the stress of his brother’s behavior, it is unsurprising to me that he has moments of difficulty. That poison he puts into his lungs is not helping; I reach to take the cigarette from him, but his hand evades mine. “Try to relax the mouth. Your jaw is clenching.”

“I’m tense. I feel angry.” He advances on me, glowering. “None of this is working. It’s all rubbish. It’s shit!” The words come out without hesitation. “And you -- you aren’t even a doctor.”

The hard K sound comes far more easily than it once did to him, but the statement baffles me. My lack of formal credentials is hardly news at this late date. I feel my eyebrow lift, the only rebuke I will permit myself. He is, after all, the King of England. “I wasn’t a doctor last week, either.”

“And yet I’ve trusted you. I’ve loved you!”

I cannot explain to myself later why those words seem unremarkable. To how many people in his entire life has he spoken them? To his towering figure of a father, his decorous mother? I know only that my reply is immediate, very nearly an aside, something I expect him to know already. “I’ve loved you, too. Bertie, what...”

As if he had been waiting for those exact words, he dives forward, pushing me back to the wall. He is younger than I am, in better condition despite his smoking, trained in the Royal Navy. He moves quickly and gracefully, something I’ve always noticed, though I suppose I’ve told myself that my gaze is clinical, looking for evidence of the wobbly knees that plagued him in early childhood.

For the first moment after his lips press mine, I think he means it as a snub or as a joke -- a demonstration that he, too, can invent new mouth exercises. That he might as well have treated himself. It takes many seconds for me to understand that he means neither...many long seconds during which, in response to an instinct I never knew I possessed, I kiss him back.

This is the King of England. I’ve tried to pretend that that means little to me, the job description of a patient, a position to which my friend has been forced to rise. It’s nonsense, of course. I’m not immune. Not to the title and not to _him_ , to Albert Frederick Arthur George, King of the United Kingdom and Emperor of India, great-grandson of the legendary monarch of my childhood, Queen Victoria. It hasn’t escaped my notice that he is quite handsome, nor that he is meticulous and gentle with the hands that no commoner is allowed to touch. He has told me that I know him better than anyone living -- I know secrets he wouldn’t tell his wife. There is no part of him I haven’t loved, even his prejudices, even his faults.

But it isn’t as though I could ever have ever considered asking the man for a hug, let alone for this. He kisses intently, with his eyes closed. Evidently he does not expect to be rebuffed. Whether that is because of who he is or because of who I am, I don’t dare to guess. I am too near to losing myself in his kisses.

“Your Majesty.”

I never call him that, and it has its intended effect, though whether he takes my reluctance for professional concern or cowardice, I wouldn’t dare to guess. Bertie gives me a moment to catch my breath, for my chest is heaving. If our positions were reversed, I would be offering advice, telling him to relax, letting him form words.

What words can there possibly be for this? I try to cast my mind back to books I’ve read, conversations I’ve had with men who _do_ have medical degrees. When I trust my tongue to speak clearly and not seek once again to tangle with his, I ask him, “Are you familiar with the work of Doctor Freud?”

“I’ve read _The Interpretation of Dreams_. And _Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious_. Is either one relevant here?” Incredibly, he is smiling at me. Not even biting down on the inside of my lip can keep me from smiling back.

“I was thinking of his explanation of transference. Perhaps you’ve encountered it -- the phenomenon by which we all redirect the feelings we’ve retained from childhood toward new objects." He nods in understanding if not familiarity. “Doctor Freud believes that during psychoanalysis, patients redirect their strongest emotions, their rages and fears and affections, onto their analysts. He found that it wasn’t uncommon for his patients to fancy themselves...”

I stop. I cannot say _in love_. Rather than impatient, Bertie appears to be amused by my inability to speak. His face is still much too close to my own, lips twitching with repressed mirth. My heart is pounding so hard that he is surely aware of it, trained as he has been by me to recognize the body’s involuntary reactions.

“My point is that, as your speech therapist, I occupy a position that is not dissimilar to a doctor. So if Doctor Freud is correct, then perhaps we ought to consider who you’re really kissing.”

To my great relief, Bertie smiles again. “Well,” he says slowly, his enunciation clear. “Certainly not my wife. Nor my father, though I imagine Doctor Freud might say otherwise.”

This time I can’t help breaking into a grin, though I also wonder whether Doctor Freud might have been right. I’m nearly twenty years older than Bertie, and though I have next to nothing in common with His Majesty King George V, first monarch of the House of Windsor, my affection for Bertie is as unrestrained as any child might wish from a father.

“I am kissing the man who helped me find my voice. An Australian quack, I’m told.” Bertie’s diction is perfect even on the difficult Q. “In all my life, there has never been anyone else like you, so perhaps you had better accept that I’m kissing _you_ , Lionel.”

Then, before I’ve had time to digest these words, he does it again. His control is thorough, the mouth of a man I’ve trained personally to be aware of every muscle in his lips and tongue and jaw. I am thoroughly unsuccessful at resisting him. I try to tell myself that it is curiosity, but I haven’t trained to recognize involuntary responses for so many years without being able to recognize my own.

And Bertie knows it. When he finally releases me, there is no pretending that I have merely been studying his urges or acquiescing to my monarch’s wishes. Once more he smiles at me. “Now would you like to discuss the work of Doctor Krafft-Ebing?”

I school my expression not to reveal my surprise. I don’t know why it should shock me that Bertie has read the _Psychopathia Sexualis_. There have been rumors that the King’s younger brother, the Duke of Kent, has homosexual inclinations, and I suppose that no Navy man can help but be aware of the indulgences of sailors. “You’re no invert,” I manage to reply, though I’ve never given much credence to Krafft-Ebing’s belief that such urges are the result of a feminized mind. No one who has met the King of England would question whether he was all man.

Indeed, though I am meant to be his speech therapist, it is my own response that occupies my thoughts. Is it because he is the King, able to trace his descent from kings more than a millennium past, while my ancestors were likely sailors and convicts? Or because he needs me in a way no one else has ever done? “Neither are you,” Bertie says, his tone still amused, perhaps because the reassurance seems necessary. “But you’ve never been a stickler for decorum, so I find it hard to believe that you’d let yourself be kissed only because your monarch demands it.”

“My monarch can be very persuasive.” I owe him honesty, at least. “But you don’t need me to tell you the thousand and one reasons this is dangerous, more so for you than for me.”

“I’m the King,” he announces, as if I could possibly need reminding. God knows he wouldn’t be the first King with such a vice. Yet I know that his brother’s behavior cannot be far from his thoughts -- not the one who runs around with Noel Coward and Chips Cannon, but the one who tossed his country aside to satisfy an itch for an American divorcee.

“I see that you do want me to tell you. Very well.” I take a deep breath. This will do us both good. “Even if it were not unethical because of my position as your speech therapist, and even if we agreed to set aside medical and moral judgments of the desires in question, and even if we were not both happily married men with families, England needs you far too much for me to be so selfish, even if I were so inclined.”

I know at once that I have trapped myself with those final words. They should never have been spoken aloud. Yet that, apparently, satisfies Bertie better than all the rest. His smile changes, and I realize, to my great embarrassment, that no matter what I had said, he would not have progressed past those kisses. He merely wished to know this about me, and now he does.

“This war can’t last forever,” Bertie says. “Though there is one risk you haven’t mentioned. The fact is that I can’t afford to lose you as my therapist or my friend.” Once more, I note the clarity of his speech. Given his history of treatment at the hands of science and well-meaning ministers, I can guess how little those medical and moral judgments impress him. “So I won’t ask again. Not now, at least.” He lowers his eyes. “Shall we continue?” The hand holding the pages of the speech rises between us, and he begins to read, quite perfectly.

I sleep very little that week. Part of it, naturally, comes from having had certain basic certainties about myself called into question, but the larger portion is terror that I will never see him again. Did I do the right thing? Will he take my refusal as a personal rejection, and reject me in turn? Will he find a way to blame me for his own impulses? Should I have said no more firmly? Or should I have said yes?

I could weep with relief when the car arrives to take me to him. I spend the drive practicing the exercises I have taught him to achieve calm, clear speech in the face of inner turmoil. When, at last, I am alone with Bertie, and he smiles and begins to discuss his visit to America, making jokes at President Roosevelt’s expense, I finally begin to relax. Nothing has changed, except that I now know just how much I love him, and he knows, too.

Bertie is right: the war will not last forever, though at times it will seem that it might. The King shall request my presence at each of his major speeches and radio broadcasts, though his smoking rather than his stammer will afflict his voice long after he ceases to need me as a teacher. He will wish to tour my native Australia, and will invite me to his private rooms to discuss it, sitting so close to me that our arms nearly touch and I can feel the heat of his body through his clothing. _His uniform_ , I may remind myself, but I cannot see the king now, only Bertie, my friend whom I once called the bravest man I’d ever met.

I’m fairly certain that will not cross Bertie’s mind during his last days, when cancer succeeds in taking the voice I fought to help him find. The King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament will be read by his Lord Chancellor. With my help, his final Christmas broadcast will have to be edited together in pieces. His daughter will go off on the trip to Australia in his stead, though she will never arrive, for word of his death will reach her in Africa and proclaim her Queen.

I won’t outlast Bertie for long, but I will feel him with me every day that I do. The impression of his mouth will linger, his kiss, his lips, his tongue...his voice.


End file.
